Peru: tens of thousands march against femicide

A national march to oppose "femicide"—under the slogan Ni Una Menos or "Not One Less"—brought tens of thousands to the streets of Lima on Aug. 13. Peru's new president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski spoke at the start of the march, pledging: "We will promote a culture that does not tolerate violence." The march comes as a response to past rulings in cases of violence against women perpetrated by their partners. According to the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations, there are 54 reported cases of women killed ay the hands of their spouse or partner so far this year. Such attacks constitute a leading cause of mortality among women in Peru. There have been 118 cases of attempted killings of that nature this year. In 2015, there were 95 such killings, and 198 attempted cases.

The international movement against femicide was sparked by the murder of Mexican poet and activist Susana Chávez Castillo in 2011. Castillo had coined the phrase Ni una mujer menos, ni una muerte más—"Not one woman less, not one more death"—in the 1990s, in response to a spate of unsolved murders of women in the border city of Juárez.